Sack of Rome by the Gauls
Around 390 BCE, a large force of Senonian Gauls under their chieftain Brennus swept southward through Etruria, routed a Roman army at the Battle of the Allia, and sacked Rome — a catastrophe so traumatic that the Romans called the anniversary of Allia a dies nefastus (cursed day) for centuries. The Gauls occupied and looted the city for months while the remaining Roman defenders held out on the Capitoline Hill. Roman tradition preserved vivid details: the geese of Juno that alerted the defenders to a night assault, and Brennus's contemptuous words 'vae victis' (woe to the vanquished) when he threw his sword onto the ransom scales. The sack destroyed much of Rome's early historical record and instilled a deep cultural anxiety about northern barbarians that shaped Roman foreign policy for generations. Recovery was rapid, and within decades Rome had reasserted dominance over Latium.
- Category: Military
